SOAP BOX

This installment of "Sunday Funday" is a pretty mellow one. I have to say that even though I managed to do quit a bit of stuff it was all really relaxing and one of the most peaceful Sundays I have had in a long time.

It started early with a text from the homie Steve (Old English). We had spoke the night before about him taking us to this secret Mexican food spot in National City that was only open on Sundays. Nick and I hopped in the car around noon and met him and his brother in front of Napoleon's Pizza House. From there we followed him into the depths of National City 'til we arrived in front of a row of about four houses on a short street. We parked our car and followed him up one of the driveways and along the side of the house. Once we got to the back yard it opened up into a covered patio where we were greeted by the owner and he told us we could sit wherever we liked. Just behind the patio was a small cooking area where old abuelitas were preparing the food and just next to that was more seating under a pop up tent. The place was super busy, but we were able to find one table in the back so we took our seats and prepared to enjoy our meal. Steve had explained earlier why it was so secret and now we got to see it for ourselves. See, you can't just walk in and expect to be served. You have to know someone. Besides, how the hell would you find this spot if you didn't know someone, right? Once we sat down Steve ran down the list of items they had available - cause good luck getting a menu here! They actually had quite a few items like sopés, rolled tacos and enchiladas and all of them came in either beef, chicken, shrimp or potato. The busy owner eventually made his way to the table and he and Steve chatted it up for a little bit. Once there was a break in the conversation the owner hit us with a "what do you want?" I decided to go for a few potato and shrimp tacos and I wasn't disappointed. This place was on point, the tacos were fried shut and placed in some sort of broth with fresh toppings all over the tacos. This was a rad start to our day plus we had a great conversation with Steve. If you ever get a chance I highly recommend listening to just one of his stories. Dude is super funny and has had some crazy experiences in his life! Thanks to Steve for taking us to this great spot, hopefully we'll get to do it again soon.

Steve, his brother Robert and Nick finishing off their meals.

After lunch we made our way back to downtown and made a quick stop at Slappy's Garage so I could pick up one of their directional shop boards and grip. I've been trying to push my skateboard around more these days so I went digging and found old sets of trucks and various skateboard parts and now I'm trying to make a few complete boards with these parts. While we were at Slappy's I got a call from my girlfriend Terry. She had just brought our dogs to the dog park off Grape Street and I thought it might be cool to grab the camera and go join her. This is actually where I took the majority of my pics from that day. I guess I was too distracted the rest of the day to remember to take pics but I got a few cool shots of the puppies in the park.

Terry had to head to work so we parted ways and Nick and I headed over to the Lafayette Hotel to wish the homie Sean Michael (@Hypemeeks) a happy birthday. This is where I snapped my last photo of the day but I thought it was fitting. There was an old Austin Healey parked out in front of the hotel and it, paired with the old hotel as the back drop made it look like we were in a scene from "Mad Men"... minus the busted ass PT Cruiser in the shot.

After the quick stop at the pool party we again made our way back to downtown and our house. We picked up our skateboards and headed to the nearest parking lot to slap some curbs and get my skateboard legs back. Because I was not forced to exercise myKalashnikov I would have to say this present-day was a favorable one.